A little over a month ago, the Lady Colonels softball team had a 7-1 conference record, and had its place as one of the top three teams in the conference. Since that time the team has lost its last five conference series, winning only one game in each and is battling for one of the last spots in the season-ending Southland Conference softball tournament.
Before the start of the skid, the team had just swept conference series from Central Arkansas on the road and Texas State, who is now the fourth best team in the league.
“We started the Conference schedule the way we wanted to, but we just haven’t played our style of softball in the past month or so,” head coach Jenny Parsons said. “We’ve lost some close games to some good teams, and hopefully we can pull out some wins in these last two weeks of play.”
When the team traveled to conference-foe Texas-San Antonio, the team split the first day, winning the first game in a slugfest 7-6, but lost the second game 4-1, in what would become a problem for the team, leaving numerous runners on base. In the series finale, the team dropped the game 7-6, leaving 12 runners on base, a total of 19 the entire weekend.
The next weekend, the Lady Colonels dropped their first home series of the year against Northwestern State, falling 9-4 and 7-4, before salvaging the series winning the last game 6-4. A total of 18 runners were left on base in the series for the Colonels.
Against Stephen F. Austin, Nicholls not only had to face the Ladyjacks on the road, but deal with the harsh elements as well. After dropping the first two games in the series 6-5 and 2-1 in extra inning games, the Colonels were able to take the Saturday finale 4-1 in the Texas snow.
The first game in the Sam Houston State series was played in 30 mph winds and went 12 innings, with the Colonels garnering the 1-0 victory with a Rachel Pugh single that drove in Kat Harrell.
The next day would prove to be even harder for Nicholls as the Lady Colonels dropped both games 8-0 and 7-4 in extra innings. It was the fourth series in a row the team had dropped bringing the number of conference losses at home to five.
Last week, looking to take out one of the teams that was ahead of them in the standings, did not go as planned as the McNeese State Cowgirls took the Saturday doubleheader 4-0 and 3-2. Nicholls bounced back to win the final game Sunday 3-0.
“After the game against Texas-San Antonio, we were putting way too much pressure on ourselves at the plate and it clearly affected our game,” Parsons said.
With only two more conference series left, at home against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and on the road against league leading Texas-Arlington, Parsons said she believes her team needs at least three to four more wins to make the tournament.
The Lady Colonels are still the second best hitting team in the conference with a .300 batting average and has the best hitter in junior shortstop Kat Harrell and leader in RBI’s in senior third baseman Leah Peterson.
Peterson, who broke the doubles record this season, is just one home run away from setting the Nicholls record for home runs in a season with 12.
Pitching has been the one constant for Nicholls throughout the season as sophomore Kodi Butler has the best record at 6-2, while junior Jessica Barksdale has one of the best ERA’s in the conference at 2.46.
Parsons said the only way her team can earn a bid in the tournament is for every player to make sacrifices, and lay it all on the line in the final 12 games of the regular season.
“If it’s giving starters rest in the mid-week games to get healthy or diving for a ground ball, it’s going to take everything we’ve got to get in the tournament,” she said. “Everything depends on how bad our players want to win a championship, and how far they are willing to go to get it.
